I am currently based in Benin, a city in Edo state which is in the south-south region of Nigeria. I have lived here all my life and have also stayed a short duration in other cities at one point or the other. One thing I love about Benin is how quiet it is, which is a stark contrast to most of the other cities I have been to. The life here in Benin is the opposite of the type of life you will see in Lagos State, which is a very fast-paced lifestyle. I did my industrial training in Lagos back in 2022 and I couldn't wait to be done so I could go back to the gentle lifestyle I was used to in Benin.
One thing that places like Lagos makes up for is the plethora of job opportunities you find there. That's mostly why people flock in numbers to that state and why it's always very noisy. There are lots of companies and industries headquartered in Lagos and I would say it's the center of business and commerce in Nigeria. But Benin City is the opposite of that, there aren't a lot of job opportunities over here and that's one of the major problems I have with this city. I was searching for software engineer jobs on Indeed and LinkedIn yesterday and I discovered that the majority of the job opportunities I came across were all in Lagos.
Of course, I could always go for remote jobs and just work from the comfort of my home but I find it absurd that no single tech company is in my city or maybe they are not currently recruiting. I think the advantage that Lagos has is that it's close to the Atlantic Ocean and has several seaports, which isn't something you will find in Benin City. But would that be the only reason why companies and industries run from this city? I really don't know for now but that doesn't change the fact that it's a big problem for us here and is the reason why many people are relocating to better cities.
As for infrastructure, Benin City is doing quite well on that front as we have good hospitals, schools and roads, although there's still a lot of work to be done on this aspect because even though many roads have been constructed and repaired over the years, there are still certain areas that have very bad roads. The one thing that irks me the most in this city is the problem of electricity. I would say it's a country thing as we have been struggling with electricity for decades but my city is the worse when it comes to that aspect.
There's a city that recently built its own geothermal power plant and now they are having 24 hours of electricity daily, but here in Benin, we barely have up to 10 hours of power daily. This is a big problem for people like me who are in the tech field, our laptops and phones are our office and need to be charged all the time. I have already given up on the government making things better and have started saving up for solar power. I guess that's another reason why companies run away from here, they rather stay in places like Lagos where the power supply is more stable
The way I see it, most of our problems in this city would be solved if there was a constant power supply. It will reduce the strain on businesses that now rely on generators to run their business, meanwhile, petrol and diesel are ridiculously expensive right now. If the government invested a lot into building a power plant for the city just like one of the cities did, it would solve the problem of electricity which would probably attract more industries to set up here. For now, we are still relying on the national grid for power and getting very epileptic power supply. But in the meantime, I guess I have to produce my electricity by looking into solar power.
This is my entry for April Inleo Prompt, day 25. Come be a part of this awesome daily prompt by clicking on this link.
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